IBM recently posted a job with prerequisites that are literally impossible. New studies show hearing is the last sense to go for humans on death's door. Over in the Arctic, it turns out Beluga Whales have something in common with humans -- just like us, they can form lifelong friends ships with other, unrelated whales. Join Ben Bowlin for more Strange News Daily, and share your stories on Twitter: #strangedaily.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Strange News Daily. It's a production of I Heart Media.
In a world full of bizarre events, unsolved mysteries, and
a billion stories from all corners of the globe, some
(00:22):
news gets lost in the shuffle. This is your gateway
to the stories on the fringe of the mainstream map.
These are your dispatches in the dark. I'm Ben Bolan,
and this is the Strange News Daily, our first story today.
(00:45):
IBM's Global Technology Services just posted a job ad calling
for candidates with a minimum of twelve plus years experience
in Kubernetties administration and management. As everyone knows, times are
tough in today's economy. Many people are out of work
(01:06):
or scrambling to find a new stable source of income,
and employers often have prerequisites for any given position, such
as X amount of year's worth of experience. However, this
case is odd because the first get hub comments for
(01:27):
the project was made on June seven, and on May
there was a feature freeze announced for version one point
of this project. This means that unless you happen to
be a time traveler, it is impossible for anyone to
have twelve years experience with this project. The ad doesn't
(01:53):
really explain how IBM expects that candidates will have somehow
had twelve years worth of experience on a project that's
only six years old. But it turns out IBM is
not the only company that's made mistakes like this. They
seem surprisingly not uncommon in the world of tech. Consider
(02:16):
the case of a developer named Sebastian Ramirez. He created
fast Api and Typer. He also shared a story similar
to the IBM one, saying on Twitter, I saw a
job post the other day. It required four plus years
of experience in fast AP. I I couldn't apply, says Ramirez,
(02:36):
as I have only one point five years of experience
since I created the thing. Maybe, Ramirez says, it's time
to reevaluate that old assumption the years of experience automatically
equate to a level of skill. Our second story today
(03:02):
takes a morbid turn. What happens in the final minutes
of your physical life as your consciousness begins to fade slowly,
going gently into that good night beyond the mortal veil.
Study show that the brain continues to process sound in
(03:24):
the same way as that of a younger person who
is far away from death's door. This comes to us
via a new study in the journal Scientific Reports, and
The study suggests that words spoken to an unresponsive loved
one as they lie on their deathbed may actually not
fall on deaf ears. In fact, this could be a
(03:47):
source of comfort to these people as they shed the
mortal coil. The study authors used e e g. To
monitor activity in the brains of unconscious patients during the
five all hours of their life at a hospice in Vancouver,
and then they compared these readings to e e G.
Readings from other hospice patients who are still conscious, and
(04:10):
of course they included a healthy control group. Here's what happened.
Each group was played a series of tones in a
recurring pattern, but with occasional notes interspersed. These occasional notes
did not follow the general trend. The researchers were looking
for specific brain signals known as m m N, P
(04:32):
three A and P three B signals that are known
to occur in the brain when it notices anomalous sounds
when it hears something breaking a pattern. The researchers found
that most unresponsive patients still showed evidence of m m
N responses to tone changes, and some showed a P
three A or P three b response to tone or
(04:54):
pattern changes. This means that their auditory systems were responding
the same way young, healthy people in the control group
would respond to the sounds. However, we have to be
careful with our assumptions here. While the brains of these
individuals might still have been able to recognize certain sounds
(05:15):
before they passed away, that doesn't mean we know whether
a person in this state can consciously register and understand
words and their meanings. The study author, Elizabeth Blunden said
in a statement that patient's brains responded to the auditory stimuli,
but we cannot possibly know if they're remembering, identifying voices,
(05:37):
or understanding language. In spite of this, the co author
of the study, Romaine Gallagher, insists that this research gives
credence to the fact that hospice nurses and physicians noticed
that the sounds of loved ones helped comfort people when
they were dying and to me, he says Gallagher, this
adds significant meaning to the last days and hours of
life and shows that being present in person or by
(06:00):
phone is meaningful. It is a comfort to be able
to say goodbye and express love. Somber stuff, Let's take
a lighter note for our third story today. It's no
(06:23):
secret that cetaceans are incredibly intelligent animals. In fact, we're
still learning just how smart they are, and in a
heartwarming turn of events, it turns out that some cetaceans
have friends just like us. A recent study, also published
(06:43):
in Scientific Reports, has formally identified for the first time
that baluga whales social ties go far beyond close blood relatives.
The researchers discovered the populations across the Arctic tend to
get by with a little bit of help from their ends.
This studies groundbreaking. It compiles data from decades of research
(07:05):
studying the complex societies of beluga whales in ten different
locations across the Arctic. These mammals are intelligent, and they're
also pretty extroverted, by which we mean highly social. They
use complex vocalizations to communicate within their groups, and they
established close ties with specific individuals, just like you may
(07:27):
consider your own best friend a sibling. The researchers hail
from Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Beach Oceanographic Institute. Their studies
said that such cooperation between bluga whales merits comparisons to
human societies in that these social networks offers support structure
(07:48):
built of many different kinds of group interactions, everything from
a mother to her calf to hang out sessions with
unrelated bluga pals. These animals live a long time, about
seventy years, and for the most part, they stay within
the communities they're born into, except for a few nomadic exceptions.
(08:09):
This demonstrates that a lot of these social bonds are
in fact lifelong friendships. The lead author of the study,
Gregor Corey Crow, says, unlike killer and pilot whales, and
like some human societies, beluga whales don't solely or even
primarily in interact and associate with close skin across a
wide variety of habitats, and among both migratory and resident populations.
(08:33):
They meaning the whales, form communities of individuals of all
ages and both sexes that regularly number in the hundreds
and possibly the thousands. Oh Corey crew continues say it
may be that they're highly developed vocal communication enables them
to remain in regular acoustic contact with close relatives even
when not associating together. The current hope of this research
(08:58):
is that our emerging understanding of the complexity blogle whales
social groups, even with unrelated individuals, will help us inform
future research investigating how these group dynamics may make the
whales more resilient or more vulnerable to emerging threats like
human interference or climate change. That's all for now. We've
(09:24):
been asking you to chime in with suggestions for stories
you think your fellow listeners might enjoy. To hit us
with your best or worst jokes, as well as your
personal experience with COVID nineteen, the ongoing protests, or anything
else that's happening in your neck of the global woods.
Let us know. Tag hashtag Strange daily on Twitter, or
reach out to me directly. I'm at Ben Bollin HSW
(09:45):
on Twitter or at Ben Bullin on Instagram. Thanks as
always to our superproducer Dylan Fagan, our research associates am
T Garden, and most importantly, thanks to you. I'm Ben Bullen.
Well see you tomorrow. Until then, stay strange
Strange News Daily. It's a production of I Heart Media.
In a world full of bizarre events, unsolved mysteries, and
a billion stories from all corners of the globe, some
(00:22):
news gets lost in the shuffle. This is your gateway
to the stories on the fringe of the mainstream map.
These are your dispatches in the dark. I'm Ben Bolan,
and this is the Strange News Daily, our first story today.
(00:45):
IBM's Global Technology Services just posted a job ad calling
for candidates with a minimum of twelve plus years experience
in Kubernetties administration and management. As everyone knows, times are
tough in today's economy. Many people are out of work
(01:06):
or scrambling to find a new stable source of income,
and employers often have prerequisites for any given position, such
as X amount of year's worth of experience. However, this
case is odd because the first get hub comments for
(01:27):
the project was made on June seven, and on May
there was a feature freeze announced for version one point
of this project. This means that unless you happen to
be a time traveler, it is impossible for anyone to
have twelve years experience with this project. The ad doesn't
(01:53):
really explain how IBM expects that candidates will have somehow
had twelve years worth of experience on a project that's
only six years old. But it turns out IBM is
not the only company that's made mistakes like this. They
seem surprisingly not uncommon in the world of tech. Consider
(02:16):
the case of a developer named Sebastian Ramirez. He created
fast Api and Typer. He also shared a story similar
to the IBM one, saying on Twitter, I saw a
job post the other day. It required four plus years
of experience in fast AP. I I couldn't apply, says Ramirez,
(02:36):
as I have only one point five years of experience
since I created the thing. Maybe, Ramirez says, it's time
to reevaluate that old assumption the years of experience automatically
equate to a level of skill. Our second story today
(03:02):
takes a morbid turn. What happens in the final minutes
of your physical life as your consciousness begins to fade slowly,
going gently into that good night beyond the mortal veil.
Study show that the brain continues to process sound in
(03:24):
the same way as that of a younger person who
is far away from death's door. This comes to us
via a new study in the journal Scientific Reports, and
The study suggests that words spoken to an unresponsive loved
one as they lie on their deathbed may actually not
fall on deaf ears. In fact, this could be a
(03:47):
source of comfort to these people as they shed the
mortal coil. The study authors used e e g. To
monitor activity in the brains of unconscious patients during the
five all hours of their life at a hospice in Vancouver,
and then they compared these readings to e e G.
Readings from other hospice patients who are still conscious, and
(04:10):
of course they included a healthy control group. Here's what happened.
Each group was played a series of tones in a
recurring pattern, but with occasional notes interspersed. These occasional notes
did not follow the general trend. The researchers were looking
for specific brain signals known as m m N, P
(04:32):
three A and P three B signals that are known
to occur in the brain when it notices anomalous sounds
when it hears something breaking a pattern. The researchers found
that most unresponsive patients still showed evidence of m m
N responses to tone changes, and some showed a P
three A or P three b response to tone or
(04:54):
pattern changes. This means that their auditory systems were responding
the same way young, healthy people in the control group
would respond to the sounds. However, we have to be
careful with our assumptions here. While the brains of these
individuals might still have been able to recognize certain sounds
(05:15):
before they passed away, that doesn't mean we know whether
a person in this state can consciously register and understand
words and their meanings. The study author, Elizabeth Blunden said
in a statement that patient's brains responded to the auditory stimuli,
but we cannot possibly know if they're remembering, identifying voices,
(05:37):
or understanding language. In spite of this, the co author
of the study, Romaine Gallagher, insists that this research gives
credence to the fact that hospice nurses and physicians noticed
that the sounds of loved ones helped comfort people when
they were dying and to me, he says Gallagher, this
adds significant meaning to the last days and hours of
life and shows that being present in person or by
(06:00):
phone is meaningful. It is a comfort to be able
to say goodbye and express love. Somber stuff, Let's take
a lighter note for our third story today. It's no
(06:23):
secret that cetaceans are incredibly intelligent animals. In fact, we're
still learning just how smart they are, and in a
heartwarming turn of events, it turns out that some cetaceans
have friends just like us. A recent study, also published
(06:43):
in Scientific Reports, has formally identified for the first time
that baluga whales social ties go far beyond close blood relatives.
The researchers discovered the populations across the Arctic tend to
get by with a little bit of help from their ends.
This studies groundbreaking. It compiles data from decades of research
(07:05):
studying the complex societies of beluga whales in ten different
locations across the Arctic. These mammals are intelligent, and they're
also pretty extroverted, by which we mean highly social. They
use complex vocalizations to communicate within their groups, and they
established close ties with specific individuals, just like you may
(07:27):
consider your own best friend a sibling. The researchers hail
from Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Beach Oceanographic Institute. Their studies
said that such cooperation between bluga whales merits comparisons to
human societies in that these social networks offers support structure
(07:48):
built of many different kinds of group interactions, everything from
a mother to her calf to hang out sessions with
unrelated bluga pals. These animals live a long time, about
seventy years, and for the most part, they stay within
the communities they're born into, except for a few nomadic exceptions.
(08:09):
This demonstrates that a lot of these social bonds are
in fact lifelong friendships. The lead author of the study,
Gregor Corey Crow, says, unlike killer and pilot whales, and
like some human societies, beluga whales don't solely or even
primarily in interact and associate with close skin across a
wide variety of habitats, and among both migratory and resident populations.
(08:33):
They meaning the whales, form communities of individuals of all
ages and both sexes that regularly number in the hundreds
and possibly the thousands. Oh Corey crew continues say it
may be that they're highly developed vocal communication enables them
to remain in regular acoustic contact with close relatives even
when not associating together. The current hope of this research
(08:58):
is that our emerging understanding of the complexity blogle whales
social groups, even with unrelated individuals, will help us inform
future research investigating how these group dynamics may make the
whales more resilient or more vulnerable to emerging threats like
human interference or climate change. That's all for now. We've
(09:24):
been asking you to chime in with suggestions for stories
you think your fellow listeners might enjoy. To hit us
with your best or worst jokes, as well as your
personal experience with COVID nineteen, the ongoing protests, or anything
else that's happening in your neck of the global woods.
Let us know. Tag hashtag Strange daily on Twitter, or
reach out to me directly. I'm at Ben Bollin HSW
(09:45):
on Twitter or at Ben Bullin on Instagram. Thanks as
always to our superproducer Dylan Fagan, our research associates am
T Garden, and most importantly, thanks to you. I'm Ben Bullen.
Well see you tomorrow. Until then, stay strange
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